


Odd Angled Memory

by jazzfic



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:24:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was something that shouted of unreality, a memory that he wanted to believe wasn't really his; it belonged to a boy who ran through the green-gold surrounds of a Texas home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odd Angled Memory

Once, in a moment that now seems a lifetime gone, while standing before a panel of two men and one woman, wide chestnut desk reflecting his suited form and projection screen, the title of his first PhD flickering slightly in the uneven flow of an uncooperative air-conditioner, Sheldon Cooper closed his eyes and experienced a flash of memory. It lasted barely a second, but disrupted his statue-like composure so fully, so terribly, that on completion he nearly flew to the bathroom on that fourth floor--worries of public facilities all but washed out in his panic--and there he stood very still in the end cubicle, forehead against the white-tiled wall, blinking through two minutes of shallow, sharp breaths, until he felt he could walk out and look his fellows in the eye, be himself again and think no more about it.

Why this could happen, affect his reasoning so badly, so suddenly, he didn't know. Part of him didn't want to know, but for now, he would step back, compartmentalize, reach into the space he knew to be made up entirely of logic and fact, to analyse later, at a distance that was acceptable to his self-imposed standards.

~

This was what Sheldon Cooper saw:

It was something that shouted of unreality, a memory that he wanted to believe wasn't really his; it belonged to a boy who ran through the green-gold surrounds of a Texas home, ran with other boys who were not on his trail like a pack of juvenile wolves, were not caught up in that too-terrible whirl of mean-spirited bullies, pelting rocks at his heels and names to pick holes in his brilliance, like acid on thin paper. In this memory they fell by his side, climbed trees as friends, laughed and made plans to outwit the evils of adulthood as only the best young heroes do.

Sheldon, aged seven and five months, the leader of a society, full of potential and beauty. Sheldon, aged seven and five months, the leader of an imaginary city, where the trees are lean and bare, wild-blown and standing at odd angles, but strong, carbon strong, rigid against the blue bowl sky.

~

And this was what Sheldon Cooper did:

He walked out, stopped by Dr. Franklin's office, shook his hand without asking and apologised wholeheartedly for the unprofessional nature of his presentation. He duly received the highest honours at his graduation, and from that moment on continued making inroads into a rewarding, infinite theory, that in the years that followed fuelled his passions and shaped his world. He took a new apartment and learned to cope with the chaos of a life drenched in the unwelcome madness of popular culture. He met new people, dismissed nearly all, kept acquaintance with a small, select few.

One day, not knowing what was to come, he followed Leonard Hofstadter across the hall to the open door of 4B, where boxes were stacked against an open door and music played in the humming air.

Sheldon Cooper, two phDs on his wall and brilliance in all corners of his imagined future, stood quietly as his roommate babbled on about things of no consequence, and when he was alone again, he placed the image of blond hair and a free, open smile somewhere far and distant, where it couldn't hurt, where it couldn't disrupt his thoughts and send him running to his room, to the safe world in the dark lit by luminescence and memory.

~

In the bathroom, by the white-tiled wall, he thought it might be happiness.


End file.
